Wild Awake

wanted all my life: to be Sukey’s confidant, her fierce protector, and the only one who truly loved her in the world.
    It suddenly feels very urgent to get out of Doug’s room. I rip open the bag of cat food and make my escape while Snoogie is busily chomping away. My skin prickles when I walk past room 409 on my way back to the stairs, and I pause there.
    This is where Sukey died.
    This is where Sukey died .
    I imagine her behind this very door, painting and playing CDs on her crappy CD player. I knock softly, ready to bolt at the slightest indication that there is anyone inside. When nobody answers, I turn the knob and open the door an inch. There’s a reek of stale cigarette butts and a naked mattress strewn with porn magazines. I pull the door shut and hurry to the stairs.
    When I get to Skunk’s place, there’s a light on and music playing. I rap on the glass. There’s motion on the other side of the curtain, and Skunk pulls open the door. He has a cigarette and lighter in one hand, which he slips into his pocket when he sees me. I smile. “Hey! I came to pick up my bike.”
    His expression relaxes. “Hey, Kiri. How’ve you been?”
    He steps outside and slides the door all the way shut behind him, like there’s something in there he doesn’t want to get out.
    “Do you have a cat?” I say.
    Skunk looks at me blankly. I worry the edge of my flip-flop against the concrete.
    “You always shut the door so quickly. I thought maybe you had an indoor cat.”
    He shakes his head. “No cat.”
    “Or an extremely vicious cat who attacks strangers. That old man who had my sister’s things has a cat like that. It’s called Snoogie, and it’s mean as a snake.”
    I think Skunk’s starting to warm up to my surprise visit. His brown eyes mellow and his shoulders relax.
    “You’d need a cat like that if you lived at the Imperial Hotel,” he says.
    “A guard cat.”
    “Maybe I should look into getting one.”
    I’m not 100 percent sure, but I think the unspoken end of that sentence is to keep crazy girls from knocking on my door . Yes, I’m being too chatty.
    “Have things been okay?” he asks.
    I try to remember how long it’s been since he last saw me. Two weeks? He probably thinks of me as that crying girl who’s always in trouble.
    I nod, embarrassed.
    “Yeah, everything’s cool. I’ll just grab my bike and get out of here.”
    Skunk presses his lips together.
    “Actually—”
    “Let me guess. Pawn shop. I should have called you a week ago, I know. How much did you get for it?”
    I can’t help it—I can’t stop jabbering. When someone else is being serious, I start telling jokes. It’s like only one person is allowed to be serious at a time, and that person is never, ever me.
    Skunk kicks at a pile of cigarette butts on the patio. “You might be mad.”
    I stare at him. “Wait, you really did sell it?”
    “No. I started doing some work on it.”
    “Oh. But there was nothing wrong with it.”
    A guilty look ripples across Skunk’s face. “I knew you’d be mad.”
    He walks over to the shed, undoes the combination lock, and pulls open the metal doors.
    There’s my bike. Well, sort of. It’s upside down and resting on a wooden workbench with its wheels in the air. The seat is off, the back tire is completely flat again, and the frame is held in place by two metal clamps. I hurry to its side like I’m a panicked relative who has just arrived at its hospital room.
    “What did you do to it? Why’s the tire flat again?”
    Skunk steps into the shed and pulls a dirty string to turn the light on.
    “The wheels were so far out of true the spokes were about to snap. Your brakes are pretty shot too.”
    He squeezes the brake lever to demonstrate. The brake pads kiss the tires feebly.
    I cross my arms.
    “It rides okay.”
    I don’t know why I’m being so defensive about the state of my obviously defective bicycle, but it irks me when people fix things that don’t need fixing. Skunk gives the brakes another squeeze.
    “If you think this thing rides okay, it’s been a while since you rode a decent bike.”
    “My bike is decent.”
    “But it doesn’t ride straight anymore, does it? Watch this.” He gives the back wheel a spin. I watch with my arms still folded. Skunk points. “See that?”
    I glance at the wheel to be polite. As it spins, the wheel veers out to the right, then back in again. Skunk spins it a little harder. It wobbles in and out, in and out, in and out.